Chronicle and HBO Win Excellence in Sports Journalism Awards

Some award-winning sports journalism. Filing it away for future reference. Similar:Schieffer: 'We Now Don't Know Where People Get Their News'The legendary Bob Schieffer is calling i…CultureVanessa Otero's Updated Media Bias Chart (Liberal/Mainstream/Conservative; Facts/Analysis/…Otero goes into great detail describing …CultureWhat Deathbed Visions Teach Us About LivingThis is not only powerful material for t…AwesomeKatie Couric Gun Documentary…

Fear and Humiliation as Legitimate Teaching Methods

A researcher who studies World of Warcraft likens leading in-game raiding parties to teaching a class. Raiding has taught me that being a good teacher requires laying down strict guidelines while simultaneously demonstrating real care for your students. The stronger the ties of trust and respect between teacher and student, the more weight they will…

A Self-Referential Story

One of my freshmen recently submitted a paper about how to overcome writer’s block. It reminded me of this story, which I came across many years ago and was able to find again fairly quickly with Google. Fun stuff. The purpose of this sentence (which can also serve as a paragraph) is to speculate that…

'Digital dark age' may doom some data

Contrary to popular belief, electronic data has proven to be much more ephemeral than books, journals or pieces of plastic art. After all, when was the last time you opened a WordPerfect file or tried to read an 8-inch floppy disk? “Even over the course of 10 years, you can have a rapid enough evolution…

Our Readers' Coolest Geek-o'-Lanterns

From Wired: Similar:Masked up, so I don't infect you, in case you are in a vulnerable group. Feeling healthy. …CultureWhy Creative Side Projects Are Good for YouSan Francisco State psychology professor…Business"A Story Before Bed" Publisher Seems to be Scraping and Republishing My Blog Content on "L…According to preterite, Looks like your…BooksPerchance to Dream: LARPing Hamlet…

Technology Review: Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

My colleague David Stanley links to this article. Many people, especially academic experts, have argued that Wikipedia’s articles can’t be trusted, because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted. Nevertheless, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. The reason is that Wikipedia’s community of more than seven million…

Woman in jail over virtual murder

Police say she illegally accessed log-in details of the man playing her husband, and killed off his character. The woman, a piano teacher, is in jail in Sapporo waiting to learn if she faces charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data. (BBC) Thanks for the link, Robert. Similar:How We Can Help Students Survive…

Paper Dolls and Politics

My six-year-old daughter is in the next room, playing with her hand-made paper dolls. A few minutes ago, I heard her tones get a little deeper, and as I listened, I heard, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.” Then I heard the rustle of another paper doll, and my daughter said, again in…

10 Ways to Get Your Writing Out There

Jim Munroe, a Toronto indie new media author whose work I’ve been following for some time, recently published this useful article on building an audience. Of course he mentions self-published print zines and blogs, but he also mentions another subject I’ve been introducing my students to this term… 6. TEXT ADVENTURE VIDEOGAMESAnyone out there play…

Going Digital

Blogging this to assign for my students to read when the current unit is over. Not surprisingly, the Web serves the first function of a local paper exceptionally well. They deliver information instantly, and articles can be updated and corrected in real time. What is surprising, though, is the unfortunate and neglected condition of most…

Majoring in video games

My provost just sent this link to me and some faculty from computer science and theater, all of whom I’ve already spoken with, very informally, about some kind of collaboration. Game design has helped rekindle interest in computer science and become a hot new major at more than 200 schools across the country, according to…

Yahoo's Blistering Buzzword Barrage

I logged onto Yahoo and found that my profile had been changed. The first of Yahoo’s “Top Questions” is “What happened to my profile?” but the link just goes to the aggressively cheerful “Welcome to the Profiles Tutorials!” page, which does not actually answer the question. Another question is “What happened to my alias profile?“,…

Behind McCain, Outsider in Capital Wanting Back In – Series – NYTimes.com

A few weeks ago, my editors were bummed when I pointed out that an unusually large number of typos had slipped through the proofreading net and popped up in the headlines. For the most recent issue, the headlines were fine, but I found three typos in bylines. So the student paper isn’t perfect. Even Homer…

The disgrace of a Facebook rape defense | Technically Incorrect – CNET News

Via Karissa: Mr. McCarraher defended his client by revealing his ingenious trump card- the victim’s Facebook page. On that page was a picture of her at a fancy dress party. She was smiling. Here are some of the lawyer’s touching words in describing the victim: “What we have is a person who has post traumatic…

To Do

Teaching: Midterm Grades (w00t!) LA100 (14 Oct) EL200 (16 Oct) EL236 (16 Oct) EL405 (16 Oct) Administration/Advising Submit two recommendations (Oct 15) Program Review Executive Summary (Draft Oct 17; awaiting reviews) Advising Grids Internal proposal for a summer outreach project Research Submit co-authored article (been sitting on it for months) Finish article for anthology (probably…

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html I’d like to be able to link to specific details on the map, but I don’t think it’s possible. I’d never heard of the “Argument Slide” before. The “concept visualization” cluster is probably most useful for teaching my freshman writing students. I’m taking a quick break from marking midterms, and I only glanced at…

Stay on Target: Real Life Tron on an Apple IIgs

During play, the screen background was solid black with a white border, with one color line representing each player. We displayed the game score in a horizontal strip at the bottom of the screen. It wasn’t the most graphically advanced program, but it was simple and fun. It looked something like this: […] “Both the…

Your Ads Make Me Hate You More

A few weeks ago, one of my local papers, the Tribune-Review, implemented a little JavaScript magic to try to hide its advertisements from the ad-blocking software I use. That means my ad-blocker didn’t recognize some of the advertising cruft, so it let it pass through the filter, and the news pages suddenly started skipping and…

Men at Forty

Men at fortyLearn to close softlyThe doors to rooms they will not beComing back to. At rest on a stair landing,They feel it movingBeneath them now like the deck of a ship,Though the swell is gentle. And deep in mirrorsThey rediscoverThe face of the boy as he practises tyingHis father’s tie there in secret And…

I have shown you what happens behind the curtain of a web page.

You already know a different way of looking at the familiar. Similar:Online dating is a method of virus controlI first met my wife in person, but we we…UncategorizedFake News Is Not the Real Media Threat We’re FacingConservative talk radio predates the Int…CultureAnnoyed and Bored by Lazy Anachronisms in The Great Gatsby MovieI just watched the…